Sources said Pandey has been fasting ever since his bull, lovingly called Badshah, went missing. “It feels like I have lost my child. Badshah has been with us since its birth. I don’t have words to express my pain,” he said.

Pandey recalled how Badshah’s mother had died a month after he was born three years ago. “For at least a year, I fed him with milk procured from another cow. Since then, he has been an inseparable part of my family,” the owner said.

This is not the first time a police search was launched for missing cattle. On January 31, 2014, seven buffaloes belonging to Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan were stolen from his Rampur farmhouse — spurring a search that eventually led to their recovery nearly 18 months later.